


Tears

by Ikebanaka



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Imagery, Written for a Class, electric boogaloo, i'm now doing mourning depression part two, it's hopeful because i wrote it before my cat died, this is a blatant allegory for depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29051070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ikebanaka/pseuds/Ikebanaka
Summary: When Ayaali's father dies, she nearly loses herself as well- to the monument to which they dedicate their dead. It is ever watching for a chance to lay its people to rest, and she has to return it to its place before it claims her too.





	Tears

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a class; it's inspired by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  
> The reflective, peaceful quality of the Memorial immediately captured my attention. But it also symbolizes acknowledging grief and moving on. Moving on from grief is a long, difficult process, and depression is a part of that. Depression isn’t just sadness, is the thing. It’s a reprieve from all the terrible feelings. But it doesn’t discern between good and bad, so all of your feelings become dull and listless- even joy. Recovery is really about taking back those feelings, even the bad ones, and letting yourself feel.

The girl is back.

Every time she comes, her reflection stays a little longer, the colors deepening and becoming clearer. The more clear it becomes, the more she herself seems to fade, and soon, so very soon, her reflection will stop leaving. She will have left a part of herself behind; it will no longer be hers.

It will be mine. (My new face)

  


She first arrived when the summer rains began to fall. Water was almost thundering down, creeks and hidden channels swelling and overflowing into the lush green of my forest as all the sensible creatures took shelter. The Earth’s clear lifeblood ran down my polished surface like a sheet of glass, and I knew I would remain unseen for another season by the people for whom I came into being.

Yet suddenly there she was, making her way across slick-slip rocks to where I was. I had seen her before, in younger days, when the people came to dutifully make me offerings and settle the temper of that which was ever watching them. She had always had bright eyes, dark enough to make the way they shone stand out, far too clever by half and curious as anything. Her clothes were always slightly out of place, and her father kept her from drifting out of place with a kind but firm brown hand on her shoulder where the rituals allowed it.

When she came that first time, she was alone, dark skin wet with rain and dark eyes wet with tears. Her father with his kind hands had been dedicated to me and come beyond my surface that spring. When I saw her stumble towards me, I thought that maybe she had come to join him in peace, as she should.

It was not to be, though. Instead, she put her hand on my dark surface where her father’s name was carved and wept, letting out gasping sobs, until finally her tears began to dry and the rain washed them away. As her crying came to a stop, she stared into the distance that was reflected beyond, and I saw myself reflected in her.

When the rain began to lighten up, she slipped away.

And I knew she would return.

  


Over the course of summer, she returned again and again, each time bringing her closer to the depths beyond my surface. Her dusky brown skin became sallow and her dark eyes dulled, and in return her image on my side gained a healthy glow and a glimmer in her gaze.

Finally, the time came when her image became mine, and I stepped free from stone and water into her skin. I walked with her back to the place she called home, and I saw faces I had watched grow and change over time. Nerekke, quiet yet cunning, and Goratu, strong fingers no less dark for the time spent weaving inside, were the first to greet Ayaali as we returned together.

We were never separate, at first, and due to my nature she and I were perceived as one and the same. Unlike her, however, when I touched people, I was able to start bringing them the peace they deserved, bit by bit. Ayaali herself was already creeping towards that final, beautiful end, and the people around us began inching towards it as well. They stopped caring so much about the things that tied them to this life of toil and strife.

But then something… shifted. While I was away, she began to spend time with sly Nerekke, playing games that siphoned away my power. Their favorite was a game in which one would lead while the other followed, reflecting each other’s movements like a mirror of flesh and bone. The simple, exuberant joy from a game that was based on my domain was counter to my very being. I am made of reflections, yes, but true peace as well, and there is no peace to be had in playful joy. 

So I drew closer, to stave it off, and she began to fade again. It wasn’t enough, however, because whenever I stuck close to her, she found her way to Goratu, who began to teach her how to weave with warp and weft. Weaving was tough work, straining her mind and hands as she held on by threads to toil instead of the peace I wanted for her. 

No matter what I did, Ayaali would not slip into peace. Sparks of emotion danced across the gray fog of her world and began to grow, becoming embers. Her time with her friends only fanned those embers.

I could not let them become flames. 

  


By the time the winds began to blow from the Northern Desert, only a season’s turn from the rains, I was beginning to struggle with holding back the fire that kept Ayaali from finding peace. Even worse, I could only touch the people closest to her.

When night fell, she would lie down and I would lie beside her, leeching away the warmth of friendship and creation. As she lay awake, night after night, I reminded her that none of it really mattered, because everything was fleeting and wouldn’t matter in the end, and eventually she would drift with vacant eyes into the closest thing this side of my mirrored surface had to absolute peace.

When she woke up, it would always be almost as if I’d done nothing at all the night before. The chill of nothingness was sunk into her bones, and yet she would meet up with Nerekke and vacant eyes would become brighter once again. The two would run and laugh and tumble through the undergrowth, searching for tubers and a good time, and would find joy despite how I spoke of not caring about such things with dear Ayaali’s mouth.

Even her visits to the Wall which held my essence began to change. Sometimes she came with Nerekke, the darling miscreant, or Goratu, whose steady kindness seemed to lift her up. When she came alone, she would sometimes sink a little deeper into peace, but for the most part it just wasn’t enough. She started slipping away.

So as we lay awake together at night, I began to whisper into Ayaali’s heart about the truth of things; about how her father deserved peace, about how her two best friends only really needed each other, about how it wouldn’t bother anyone if she just… stopped for a while. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time for yourself, maybe heading out to the river and stumbling, accidentally of course, right off the edge into the thundering water in the Chasm. Her name would be etched into my surface, near her father’s, near her cousin gone too soon, and she’d finally stop hurting so much.

She would finally be at peace.

But the times where she stole away in the night to make her way over slick-slip stone to trace the names with her fingers only decreased. She began to talk about our conversations with Goratu, who would wrap strong arms around her and promise that she was an important part of their trio. 

Talking turned into starting a project together in her father’s memory. Ayaali would do the actual weaving, while Goratu would act as her guide. It was to be a strip around her neck, with the double triangles of heart, soul, and mind in white for death, surrounded in red for passion, green for life, and blue for hopes and dreams.

They couldn’t have found a pattern worse for me if they’d tried.

But this wasn’t the first time I’d stepped out in someone else’s image, so I knew that starting this project wasn’t the be all, end all. And sure enough, Ayaali’s enthusiasm was only able to carry her so far. With me haunting her every step, in every reflection she saw, her progress staggered to a stop. Picking up what she had woven, I lamented about how it would never be done, and as she held it she couldn’t help but believe I spoke the truth.

My sweet Ayaali slipped away into the night with me once again, wandering well worn trails become unfamiliar and strange, everything just as faded in the pale moonlight as she herself was.

And yet… I didn’t have the same sway over her as I had in previous jaunts. Those embers in her heart refused to dim back into sparks and be extinguished. 

Stepping outside into the morning light, and seeing her friends approach, I understood why. Nerekke was a breath of fresh air, fanning her embers, and Goratu kept her grounded when she felt them start to dim.

It was Nerekke in the end who sparked the first true flame. 

Ayaali felt more confident when they were together, and it was while they were spending a more quiet afternoon some distance from where Goratu was finishing off a bolt of fabric that she finished her first double triangle. She leapt up with joy and ran to Goratu to show off her work, and I couldn’t follow fast enough. 

I felt my stolen image flicker, and I knew my time with her was coming to an end.

Her second double triangle stoked her fire even further, with Goratu’s praise and steady presence and Nerekke’s sly yet earnest encouragement. Her woven band was halfway done, and her heart was harder than ever to find an opening into.

Although I only want the people whose belief made me to be at peace, in the way only death allows, I could feel that I was slowly but surely being denied.

The final step in our separation was also my last chance. When dear Ayaali finished her binding solution, the monsoon season had begun again. My child of summer rains and hidden fire went to where I stood tall, reflecting her, and burst into heaving sobs and tears. She tied the woven band around her neck like a promise, and when I whispered one last time into her heart  _ it was all for nothing _ , she looked me in the eye and said it wasn’t nothing to her.

And so I found myself once again behind the surface of the Wall of Names, waiting for the next of my people to be brought to me. Until then… 

We will rest in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> It was interesting to try and write from a nonhuman perspective. I wrote it that way because I wanted to write from an outside perspective but also show the internal struggle. From a 1st person POV, you only really get the internal journey; from a true outside perspective, you only see how that struggle shows outwardly. I wanted to help the reader understand how behavior connects to the internal struggle of depression. I hope y'all got that.


End file.
